Police: Shooting spree not random

Staff report

Updated 9:23 pm, Sunday, April 27, 2014

An evidence marker indicates where police found a clip after a gunman opened fire on a crowd of people early Sunday morning. Five people were shot but none of the injuries are life threatening, police said. (Tom Heffernan Sr. / Special to the Times Union)

An evidence marker indicates where police found a clip after a...

Police tape on Fourth Street in Troy indicates the place where a gunman opened fire on a crowd of people early Sunday morning. Five people were shot but none of the injuries are life threatening, police said. (Tom Heffernan Sr. / Special to the Times Union)

Police were tracking down leads Sunday but not saying much about their investigation into a late-night shooting spree that left five people wounded by an armed man who fired a gun as he ran through a crowd on a street popular with nightclub patrons.

Bullets struck two men and three women but none of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries. The men, cops said, were the gunman's intended targets, Capt. John Cooney said. The women were innocent bystanders who were just dining near I Love Pizza of Troy on Fourth Avenue, he added.

All five were hit below the waist by the gunfire and were taken to local hospitals for treatment.

The shooting unfolded around 12:30 a.m. Sunday in the 100 block of Fourth Street. That stretch of Fourth Street, just north of Congress Street and few blocks from both Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's campus and the city's police station, is a busy thoroughfare dotted with eateries and a few bars.

Cooney said detectives believe the two male shooting victims may know the gunman. A motive for the shooting was not immediately clear. But police said one of the wounded men was not cooperating with investigators.

The shooting occurred across the street from Kokopellis nightclub, a city nightspot that earlier this year was the location of brawl that was recorded by surveillance cameras inside and outside the 124 Fourth St., club. There is no indication Kokopellis was connected to Sunday's shooting, police said. Police had no clear description of the gunman, who fled on foot.